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Botkins, W-G admins pleased with state report cards

Administrators at both the Botkins and Waynesfield-Goshen school districts voiced their pleasure with their respective school district’s report card numbers that were released this week.
Botkins Local Schools students managed to meet all 26 indicators on the report card, while Waynesfield-Goshen Local Schools students managed to meet 21 of the 26.
For Botkins students, it marked the sixth straight year that they achieved a perfect mark meeting the 26 indicators and receiving the excellent designation.
“We are very pleased with that performance,” Botkins Superintendent Connie Schneider said. “Our scores were the highest in Shelby County and we are very proud to be the top in the county.”
Botkins Schools met all of the indicators with ease, scoring no less than 83.8 percent in any one category. A minimum of 75 percent is required in most categories. The 83.8 was scored in fifth grade reading.
“We are actually as proud of that group as anybody,” Schneider said. “They worked pretty hard.”
Waynesfield-Goshen Schools’ score of 21 is believed by school officials to be the best report card the district has ever received on the tests.
Superintendent Joanna Kerekes said the report card was well received as classes resume Wednesday at the school.
“I think it confirmed that we are on the right track in improving our test scores and improving our curriculum overall,” Kerekes said.
District students showed improvement across the board from a year ago in every category except fifth- and seventh-grade reading, with the drop in the seventh-grade mathematics being less than 1 percent.
Kerekes said that district students met every indicator in 10th and 11th grades and achieved an overall average passage rate over all categories of 82 percent. The state requirement for a passing rate is 75 percent.
The most significant improvements came in eighth-grade reading (an 11.3 percent improvement), sixth-grade mathematics (15.5), fifth-grade mathematics (10.9), and fourth-grade mathematics (10.7). Third-grade students showed a 97.7 passing rate in mathematics, while the high school junior class had a 97.4 passing rate in mathematics and reading.
The district also met seven of eight indicators on the elementary portion of the report card, another school first.
The district was within a few percentage points of passing in all categories with the exception of eighth-grade science, where the district scored a dismal 57.1 percent. However, Kerekes said even that score showed drastic improvement.
“That score was actually much lower with the fifth grade scores (the science portion of the test is not administered in sixth and seventh grades),” Kerekes said. “It went up significantly from last night. “There is always room for improvement and this is by no means the end. But it shows we are on the right path.”
Both superintendents felt the scores showed the dedication of everyone involved.
“We place emphasis here on the standards that the state has set as being important,” Schneider said. “It shows the dedication of everyone involved, including the parents, community, the faculty and the students themselves.”